23-1

As of January 7, 2013, opioid treatment programs (OTPs) can now dispense buprenorphine take-homes, with no predetermined waiting period for stable patients. The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) at last issued its final rule giving OTPs the welcome flexibility this past November, and the rule was published in the Federal Register December 6, … [Read more...] about OTPs Can Now Dispense Buprenorphine Take-Homes with No Waiting Periods

Buprenorphine and methadone, both being opioids, activate the opioid (mu) receptors on nerve cells. And both drugs have long half-lifes, meaning that they’re long-acting medications. The half-life can vary from 24 to 60 hours for buprenorphine, and from 8 to 59 hours for methadone. (The half-life is the amount of time a drug stays in the body before its concentration in the … [Read more...] about Buprenorphine vs. Methadone

 Buprenorphine has been in active use for 10 years as a treatment medication for opioid addiction. As explained by Nicholas Reuter, MPH, senior public health analyst with SAMHSA’s Center for Substance Abuse Treatment (CSAT), the development of buprenorphine was preceded by the development and approval by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) of levo-alpha-acetyl-methadol … [Read more...] about History of Buprenorphine

Health care reform will bring increased access to opioid treatment programs (OTPs), but not as great an increase as the federal government keeps saying it will be. The impediment is the states—specifically, the anti-methadone states, which many are in one way or another. Either they won’t let Medicaid pay for methadone maintenance, or they won’t force private insurers to cover … [Read more...] about Promise of Health Care Reform for Opioid Treatment Programs Dimmed by State Discrimination

Many patients in opioid treatment programs (OTPs) are likely to have chronic pain, but in many, that pain will not be adequately treated, in part because there are so many problems balancing the methadone they are given for opioid dependence with the types of medications needed to treat pain. “Most physicians in an OTP have experience treating addiction and pain, I can … [Read more...] about Chronic Pain in Opioid Treatment Program Patients Typically Untreated